Trump and Musk’s Cuts are Already Affecting Rural Wisconsin

A letter from farm country

Trump and Musk are having a chilling effect on rural Wisconsin. Author’s photo

I live in a Trump township, in a Trump county, in a Trump state. I can’t say that I voted for him, but I understand why many did.

One of my neighbors explained his Trump/Musk vote to me. He essentially said that, to him, the Democrats are out of touch with people like him. When I suggested that Trump is signalling authoritarianism, my friend pointed to Trump’s first term, when Trump was a lot of bluster and show but didn’t change that much. My friend was more concerned about trans women competing in women’s sports and going into women’s locker rooms than Trump’s signalling of fascism.

Well.

We have already seen that Trump 2.0 is not at all like Trump 1.0. This feels like a Blitzkrieg against the very idea of a federal government. Welcome to the world where an unelected rich bro co-president has decided to destroy the federal government and tank the American economy.

As a rural white dude in Trump country, I might expect to have few negative outcomes from the first two months of the Trump/Musk presidency. I might think that the federal government is in Washington DC and their programs are mostly helping (so-called) minorities in big cities. I might think that I would be better off without such a big federal government. I would be wrong.

Here is a partial list of what has come to me or people in my circle so far:

1. One of my folk dance (Border Morris, if you must know) team members recently retired from the leadership of an anti-poverty action group called West CAP. He and I carpooled to dance practice and he told me about how this 60-year-old organization is concerned that its federal grants will be frozen, specifically those connected to sustainable energy and climate change mitigation. This could affect a lot of people. My friend said in an email, “One of our biggest and longest running programs, Weatherization, is specifically targeted in Project 2025 for elimination, so nothing is certain at this time.” West CAP is one of hundreds of CAPs across the country that are fighting poverty. CAPs are survivors of the War On Poverty, passed in 1964 — the brainchild of Sargent Shriver, who took JFK’s idea and turned it into reality. They…